Day X: Final Fantasy X-2

Disclaimer: There will be spoilers abound in this post (including spoilers from the game’s prequel, Final Fantasy X). You have been warned!

Originally released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2, Final Fantasy X-2 (spoken “ten-two”) became the first direct sequel to a Final Fantasy game. The game, however, took a radical departure from Final Fantasy X. The overall tone of the game, the battle system, and even the players that you could control all took a major overhaul. This time around, the majority of the story was treated with a much more light-hearted tone and the player this time could only control three characters: Yuna, Rikku, and the game’s new playable character, Paine. The trio, dubbed “YRP”, is controlled in battle through a new job and battle system called the Dressphere system.

Despite the success of Final Fantasy X, this overhaul was met with very mixed reviews. Often called the Charlie’s Angels of the Final Fantasy series, many fans felt taking over the new adventures of YRP felt like anything but a Final Fantasy game. With everything from concert performances staring Yuna, to a quasi-lesbian scene in a hot spring, and a battle system that is quite literally based on costume changes — it is not hard to see why many fans felt this way.

This was also the first Final Fantasy game to reward players for completing the entire game as it tracked the player’s completion percentage throughout the game. Based on how much of the game was completed, the player would then be rewarded with different endings. Anything less than 80% resulted in the normal ending, above 80% resulted in what was called the “good” ending, and a 100% completion awarded the “perfect” ending.

Although for the majority of this posts you will see me crack many a joke at the story and some of the other general ridiculousness of the game, there is a lot that Final Fantasy X-2 did extremely well. I will reveal those aspects throughout the post; however, let’s first take a look at the story.